TOKYO – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested 13 Japanese men on Thursday morning for their alleged involvement in a cryptocurrency fraud ring operating out of Indonesia, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Apr. 16).
The suspects, whose ages range from their 20s to 50s and who have no known occupations or addresses, were taken into custody after their transfer flight from Jakarta touched down at Haneda Airport at approximately 8:30 a.m.
Police allege that between February and March, the syndicate targeted a woman in her 60s from Nara Prefecture. Posing as police officers over the phone, the fraudsters successfully swindled the victim out of roughly 8 million yen worth of cryptocurrency.
The group’s overseas operations unraveled on March 2, when Indonesian immigration authorities raided three detached houses in a residential neighborhood in Bogor, West Java.
During the sweep, local officials detained the 13 men and confiscated smartphones alongside counterfeit police badges used to deceive their victims.
According to the police, this bust marks the first time Japanese authorities have cracked down on a domestic scam syndicate based in Indonesia.
The ring specialized in conducting tokushu sagi, or specialized fraud. In such a crime, a caller on the telephone impersonates an authority figure or a relative and deceives them.
In recent years, Japanese organized crime groups have increasingly relocated their “special fraud” call centers to Southeast Asian nations — most notably Cambodia — to evade detection by domestic law enforcement.
Police are now working to uncover the full scale of the syndicate’s activities and determine how long they had been operating from their Indonesian hideout.
